


The Mirror

by assbuttsinlove



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Bookstores, Drugs, Fluff, M/M, Magic, soul mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 00:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1489693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assbuttsinlove/pseuds/assbuttsinlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His mother takes him to see the mirror when he's 5 years old.  That's where he sees the boy with the dark hair and the blue eyes.  He doesn't understand it then, and it takes him a long time to figure it out, but the blue eyed boy is his soulmate, and it haunts him for a long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [El Espejo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3698153) by [Jessica_Adams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessica_Adams/pseuds/Jessica_Adams)



> written based off a prompt and originally posted on tumblr.

**5**

He is five years old. 

His mother stands next to him, holding on to his hand tightly.  He’s not sure where he is or what he’s doing in the middle of the woods, but there are a lot of people here so he doesn’t feel scared or alone.  Around him the trees bristle and sway in the breeze.  The leaves whisper things, and the sky is so blue, it almost hurts to look at it. 

In the distance he can see it, the mirror.  The sun glints off it’s surface, and he squints. 

“Mama, what are we doing here?” he asks.

Mary looks down at him and smiles.  “We’re here to look into the mirror, Dean,” she says with a soft smile. 

He feels butterflies curl in the pit of his stomach.  “For what?” he asks. 

Mary grips on to his hand even tighter.  “To see what you see…” she says cryptically. 

He frowns but doesn’t say anything.  He continues to listen to the chatter around him and spends some time observing a pair of squirrels as they run around chasing after each other’s tails. 

The wait feels like forever, but he finally gets up to the mirror.  He sees that it is surrounded by a fence and guards stand on either side.  A pretty woman with dark hair and blue eyes smiles at him and reaches out for his hand. 

“Come, little one,” she says to him. 

He looks up at his mother, scared for the first time, but Mary simply smiles at him and gives him a gentle push. 

“Go on, Dean, it’s alright, I’m right here,” she says.

Reluctantly, Dean accepts the woman’s hand and allows her to guide him over to the stone steps leading up to the mirror.  Together, they walk up the steps until they reach the last one and Dean finds himself staring at his reflection, staring into his own eyes.  The mirror itself is old and is shaped oddly, like a shield.  Perched at the top is a figure carved out of something black.  He can make out a bow and arrow, the arrow pointing up to the sky.  He stares into the mirror once more, suddenly wishing he could touch it. 

“Look deeper, child,” the woman says. 

Dean looks up at her and squints.  “What am I looking for?” he asks. 

She smiles at him and shakes her head.  “I cannot tell you what to look for.  The mirror will show you what she wishes you to see,” she replies.

He feels himself getting frustrated but he looks into the mirror once more, gasping when he no longer sees his own reflection, rather he sees something else completely.   Inside the mirror, staring back at him is a young boy.  He makes out a shock of dark hair and a pair of intensely blue eyes.  The boy in the mirror smiles at him and Dean smiles back, shyly reaching forward to touch the mirror.  There’s something about this boy that intrigues him, that makes him want to ask him a million questions.  He wants to know everything about this boy and he wants to tell this boy everything about himself, even though there wasn’t much to tell. 

When he touches the mirror, the boy with the blue eyes squints and wrinkles his nose and then as quickly as he had appeared, he vanished, leaving Dean with his own reflection to contemplate. 

He feels a strange sense of loss and he doesn’t understand why.  “Who was that?” he asks looking up at the dark haired woman.

She squats down to his level and smiles. 

He watches as she pulls out a small notebook and a pen then looks back at him.  “Tell me, what did you see?” she asks. 

“I saw a boy,” he says.

“What else?”

“He had dark hair.  And really blue eyes, like…like my favorite crayon,” he says excitedly. 

“And how did he make you feel?” she asks.

Dean frowns and shrugs.  How did the boy make him feel?  Well, he wasn’t even sure.  Dean knew he wanted to meet this boy, maybe spend some time coloring with him or playing hide and seek, so he tells the dark haired woman and she smiles. 

“Thank you.  I have one more question for you,” she says as she gets up. 

“Okay,” he replies.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

Dean looks up at her and grins, forgetting about his missing front teeth.  “Dean Winchester,” he says proudly. 

The woman smiles at him and hands him a piece of paper.  “Keep this safe, Dean Winchester, keep it with you, always,” she says. 

Dean accepts the paper and stares at it.  He can make out his own name, the word blue, but other than that…he can’t read the rest of the words.  He folds it into a little square and hands it to his mother who takes it from him and tucks it into her purse.

He spends the next five years dreaming of the boy with the blue eyes and the dark hair. 

He doesn’t know why. 

**10**

When he turns ten it begins to make sense.  He’s heard stories, he’s seen his cousins leave with their mothers to visit the mirror.  It’s a thing, apparently, and the boy with the blue eyes is his soul mate. 

He asks his mother when he’ll meet him but she shakes her head.  She doesn’t know.  No one does. 

His father isn’t especially happy that his soul mate is a boy, but Dean doesn’t understand why it’s a problem. He wants to go back to the mirror, he often dreams of it, of him being alone in the woods with it. 

He sees the boy’s blue eyes and his mouth curves, as though he’s trying to say something to him but no sound comes out. 

The blue eyes haunt him.

**18**

Sam has met his soul mate.  A beautiful girl named Jess with blond hair and blue eyes.  She comes over to their home often, spends time with his mother in the kitchen, spends time with Sam in the backyard on the swing set. 

Dean watches them sometimes from his bedroom window before turning back to his laptop. 

His heart aches.  He tries not to think about it too often, but it still hurts that Sam has found his soul mate before him. 

He doesn’t dream of the blue eyed boy anymore but he remembers him.  From time to time he unfolds the piece of paper that the woman had given him and reads the words. 

_Dean Winchester_

_Blue eyes, dark hair._

_Wants to spend time coloring with him, playing hide and seek._

_Touched the mirror. The bond will be strong._

He has read these words so many times, he’s memorized them by now.  He can recite them without even thinking.

He folds the paper back into four squares and tucks it back into his wallet. 

**22**

He’s drunk.  College is wonderful.  He’s majoring in Education, and he has a best friend, and she hasn’t met her soul mate yet either so he doesn’t feel so alone.

He forgets about the blue eyed boy, stops looking, and chooses to focus on school instead. 

He likes his friends.  He likes his school.  He likes getting drunk and high on the weekends and playing beer pong and taking long drives out to the coast. 

He sees a boy one day on the beach with blue eyes but when they look at each other he knows it’s not him.

He kisses him anyway. 

They have rushed sex in the backseat of his car.  He comes too quickly, excited at having someone who looks so much like his soul mate touch him. 

He never sees him again. 

**25**

He’s in Rome. 

He’s with Charlie and her girlfriend Gilda.  Cassie has decided to come along with them. 

They walk along cobblestones, see the Coliseum, and eat gelato while the sun sets.

He throws a coin into the Trevi fountain and smiles when it plunks into the water.  He doesn’t wish for the blue eyed boy anymore.  He hardly thinks about him, in fact. 

He holds hands with Cassie and they walk along the narrow streets, laughing when they get caught in the rain. 

Sometimes he thinks about kissing her but he doesn’t.  His heart just isn’t in it. 

Cassie stops in front of a young man at the forum.  He has chocolate brown eyes and short hair and they smile at each other, as though they had known each other all their lives.

In a way they did.

Cassie extends her stay in Rome. 

Dean leaves with a smile but a heavy heart. 

**26**

He’s working, now.  He spends his days running after little children and teaching them the alphabet. 

He’s happy at work, and happy at home.  He has his own place.  He cooks dinner and invites his parents over.

His mother looks at him fondly and tells him that his cooking has improved.

He dates, sporadically, sometimes he brings people home to warm his bed.  He doesn’t mind.

He’s beginning to think maybe the boy with the blue eyes was just a dream.

The piece of paper is in a drawer somewhere. 

It no longer has a place in his wallet. 

**28**

Sam and Jess get married. 

He’s the best man and he cries, even though he promised himself he wouldn’t. 

His brother hugs him tightly and claps him on the back.

_Don’t worry, Dean.  Soon,_ he whispers.

Dean rolls his eyes and shakes his head.  He’s fine.

He’s fine.

**29**

Some people just don’t have soul mates, and that’s okay.  Dean comes to terms with it and he’s fine. 

He spends his time working and hanging out with friends.   Jess is pregnant and he’s happy, he’s going to be an uncle. 

He has forgotten about the piece of paper in his drawer. 

Sometimes, he thinks of the boy with the blue eyes.  He must be a man now, he thinks with a laugh as he walks into the bookstore.  The little bell tinkles as he steps inside and he takes a deep breath, appreciating the stillness and the comfort of being surrounded by so many books. 

He browses around for a little while, absently trailing his fingers on the spines, pulling books out at random and reading the blurbs.  Nothing speaks to him and he finds himself getting frustrated.  He just wants a good book, something he can lose himself in for the next couple days.

He ends up in a dusty corner of the shop.  The label on the wooden shelf reads  _Magical Realism._ The books all look old and used but this excites him.  He begins to pull out books and flips through them.  There aren’t many of them and some of them are in Spanish but he settles on one, titled  _One Hundred Years of Solitude._ On the inside of the front cover he sees the former owner’s name scribbled in the corner,  _C. Novak._ He reads the blurb and decides that this is the book he’ll take, this is the one he’ll read. 

Happy, he walks up to the counter to pay for his book. 

The person behind the register is below the counter, picking something up off the floor.  “Be with you in a sec,” he says in a strange, gravelly voice. 

Dean pulls out his wallet in the meanwhile, checking for cash.  It takes him a couple beats, but when he looks up, he realizes the cashier is staring at him.

“Oh…” he says in his gravelly voice.

Dean’s heart leaps into his throat and for a moment he can’t breathe.  Staring back at him are a pair of the most brilliantly blue eyes he has ever seen.  “You…” Dean breathes.  He steps back, his heart hammering painfully against his chest.

“I’m…” the man’s voice trails off and they continue to stare at each other. 

Dean isn’t sure what to say.  Here he is, 29 years old, lost and confused, staring into the eyes of the man he has been dreaming of for so long. He’s handsome, Dean realizes, with a strong jaw, soft, chapped looking lips, and the same shock of dark hair.  He’s wearing glasses, and they suit him well. 

The man pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and steps out from behind the counter.  “I’m Castiel,” he says quietly.

Dean swallows thickly and he licks his lips.  “I’m Dean,” he replies softly.

They stare at each other and then they both burst out laughing. 

When Cas smiles, Dean can see his gums, and little wrinkles form at the corner of his eyes. 

“I’ve been dreaming of you and your freckles since I was a kid,” Cas says with a shake of his head. 

Dean laughs.  His stomach is tied up in knots and he grips onto the book in his hand tightly.  “It was your eyes for me…they were so blue… _are_  so blue,” he says almost reverently. 

“Dean,” Cas repeats slowly. 

Dean smiles and feels a thrill of excitement run through him.  Who would have thought, here of all places, in a bookshop, on a chilly Thursday afternoon in November, he would have met him here, the blue eyed boy,  _his_  blue eyed boy.      

He looks at Castiel and smiles.  There’s so much he wants to know, so much he wants to tell him.  “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” he says.

Castiel smiles and nods.  “Yes, it is.”

**30**

They have their own place.

Despite his allergy, Dean allows Cas to get a cat.  Sometimes in the mornings, it curls it’s body around Dean’s legs and he’ll scratch behind its ears until it purrs happily.

They spend hours kissing and touching and making love in every room of their new home, eager to learn each other’s bodies; hungry mouths suck dark hickeys into pale skin, chapped lips brush against freckled shoulders.

Dean wakes up now to a feathery head pressed up against his chest, inquisitive blue eyes peering up at him in the dull light.   

He doesn’t dream of the blue eyed boy anymore. 

He doesn’t have to.  


End file.
